Police: Woman Stole From Her Elderly Clients

Nursing Assistant Charged With Grand Theft And Abuse

February 9, 1996|By EVELYN LARRUBIA Staff Writer

FORT LAUDERDALE - — Gwenda Lemon not only stole checks from the elderly people she cared for, police said, but also assaulted a paralyzed man, leaving him lying on the kitchen floor while she ransacked his belongings and robbed him yet again.

The 34-year-old Lauderdale Lakes nursing home assistant was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with six counts of passing forged checks, four counts of grand theft, one count of burglary with battery and one count of financial exploitation of the elderly. She is being held in the Broward County Jail with no bail.

Perry Thurston, Lemon's Fort Lauderdale attorney, said his client has denied the accusations. "The blatancy amazes me," said police Detective Joe Roubicek, who investigated the complaints and filed the charges.

Roubicek said Lemon would sign her name to the stolen checks, pay bills with them and even opened a bank account in her name.

"It's almost as if she was saying: `When's someone going to stop me,'" Roubicek said.

The thefts, Roubicek said, seem to have started in April 1994 when Lemon was working as a certified nursing assistant at the Manor Oaks Nursing Home on East Commercial Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.

Vera Cordes, 94, was staying in the nursing home that month, receiving therapy for a hip fracture, she said on Thursday. She remembers Lemon attending her.

Cordes also remembers being given a sleeping pill, feeling drowsy and watching Lemon go through her purse.

Police say Lemon stole three checks from Cordes, made them out for a total of $700 and cashed them.

Roubicek said he also investigated $5,000 in fraudulent credit-card purchases he suspects Lemon made on Cordes's Visa credit card, but has not filed charges for credit-card theft.

"She had a good time, didn't she," Cordes said. "The fact that she's out there doing it to other old people, that's what bothers me."

Between October and November 1994, Roubicek said, Lemon stole 15 checks from Roy Wilson, 72, who is paralyzed from the waist down and was undergoing treatment at Vencor Hospital on East Las Olas Boulevard at the time. Roubicek said Lemon cashed checks totaling $17,835.

Last March, when Wilson was back at his Pompano Beach home, Roubicek said Lemon showed up at Wilson's front door claiming to be a social worker. Wilson accused her of stealing his checks.

In response, police said, Lemon spun Wilson's wheelchair around, sprayed Mace in his face, dumped him on the floor head first, Maced him again, ripped the telephone from the wall, then rifled through his belongings.

When she left, Roubicek said Lemon took seven checks with her. She later used them to pay $4,000 in bills, including a car loan, a personal loan and electric and furniture bills.

According to a police report, Lemon admits to spraying Mace on Roy Wilson, but said she did it to fend off a sexual assault by the paralyzed man.

In addition, Roubicek said Lemon stole five checks from two elderly women in August, cashing them for more than $2,100.